Why Do Subject-Topics Mutate on OL?

[thomtg]

[...]

I could turn that around and ask if [distractions] can be totally managed volitionally, why don't people simply eliminate them altogether?

[...]

Michael,

Let's concretize what distractions primarily are. I identify the physiological process of perception to be automatic and biological and requiring replenishment and rest (sleep). It is perception that can be distracting because its field is so wide. If the base of man's conceptual knowledge of reality is perception, then that fact alone shows how vast and rich and detailed a single "glance" can be. This is where volition is required to enable the individual to focus conceptually on the particular aspect of reality of his interest to be aware of. Therefore, it is the very nature of a conceptual being to need to choose to focus his conceptual apparatus on some particular area. If he doesn't choose, perception continues to flood in, but he won't get much conceptually out of it. And all of this is natural and an uneliminatable aspect of nature.

Now if you can isolate a particular area of perception to focus on conceptually, surely you can use the same capacity to manage interruptions from people, phone calls, e-mails, etc. If you can block out the nagging pain from a freshly scratched knee to continue your intellectual work, surely you can push out lower-level emotional distractions from your higher-level purpose. The key is to have a purpose and to commit to it at a sufficiently high level. Is it not in NB's TPOSE that he says the source of self-efficacy is the will to understand? This is the controlling purpose: to want to understand and to commit to it, come what may.

So I reject your compromise that it is possible to have genuine focus and yet still be distracted in some other form. You cite the counterexample of someone who is focused on paying bills but can't transfer the focus level to reading forum posts. This example doesn't apply.

I maintain that volitional focus is always purpose related. The primary one is the will to understand or know. Ayn Rand's definition of "thinking" as a volitional activity has an integrated component of purpose. The basic choice is to think or not. Why think? Rand defines "thinking" as a mental identification or classification of what exists. (ARA 158, BB POET L01 S03); and she defines "thought" as a purposefully directed process of cognition. (ITOE 32a).

Using your example, I can explain it this way: What is the purpose in that situation? It is to pay bills. Now, because he is insufficiently focused, he loses track of his purpose and thus spends time reading OL forum posts. It is not poor cognition that I am attributing. It is the purpose that he has lost that leads him not to have any strong purpose subsequently when he spends time reading and writing forum posts. When one doesn't have a purpose, what is there to will?

[...]You cannot turn the concept-forming capacity off, though. It will run whether you want it to or not. A very good example (and I am indebted to a harsh Rand-critic for this, Greg Nyquist) is a baby learning how to speak (i.e., communicate concepts). If learning how to speak were totally volitional, then there would be cases of babies who refused to learn how to speak. (We are discussing normal healthy babies, not sick ones.) The fact is that a baby has no choice in the matter. He must learn how to speak because that is his nature. [...]

At the adult level, however, everything that is conceptual is volitional, hence the need for epistemology. Granted that conceptual capacities can't be turned off, they have to be activated explicitly, volitionally. After all, thinking is a choice. Now, at the baby level, I find Rand's explanation much more plausible than Nyquist's. In ITOE 150-152, Rand talks about this very topic in answer to a question about how the baby abstracts for the first time when he doesn't know what abstraction is. "No, you do something else volitionally. That is, you abstract volitionally, but you don't will it directly the first time. Do you know what you will? You will to observe. You use your senses, you look around, and your will is to grasp to understand. And you observe similarities. Now, you don't know yet that this is the process of abstraction, and a great many people never grasp consciously that that's what the process is. But you are engaged in it once you begin to observe similarities."

Thus, while our automatic capacities cannot be turned off, they don't get activated and run by themselves either unless we choose to engage them. Purpose is truly a cardinal value to jumpstart every action, psychological and existential. In fact, willing qua action of consciousness requires an objective content, which is purpose. (ITOE 29-30)

I would say, therefore, that much of the mutations on OL threads stem from inefficiency in maintaining purpose at a sufficiently high level. This is a habit people can acquire, a habit of not caring where their minds wander. It is, as you said, the same character profile that finds Twitter appealing.

[Brant Gaede]

I would say, therefore, that much of the mutations on OL threads stem from inefficiency in maintaining purpose at a sufficiently high level. This is a habit people can acquire, a habit of not caring where their minds wander. It is, as you said, the same character profile that finds Twitter appealing.

Nuts. You're confusing Internet forums with writing a book. The more I know about Twitter the more less I wish I knew.

--Brant

[Christopher]

All this discussion about subject mutation is making my belly rumble. By the way, what did you guys have for dinner last night?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

So I reject your compromise that it is possible to have genuine focus and yet still be distracted in some other form.

Thom,

As you should since I never made such a compromise.

At the adult level, however, everything that is conceptual is volitional, hence the need for epistemology.

I am glad you have a life span of millenniums of millenniums. I personally don't have enough time to have volitionally integrated all the concepts in my mind.

Granted that conceptual capacities can't be turned off, they have to be activated explicitly, volitionally. After all, thinking is a choice.

This is wrong. A baby can't "not think" by choice. Neither can an adult.

With great effort, the mind can be cleared of conceptual thought for a small time through meditation. That's about all you are going to get if you want measurable facts.

Anyway, I think we are at an impasse. So I am going to give this one a rest.

Michael